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2011 18: 795OrganizationJean M. Bartunek and Boram Do

The sacralization of Christmas commerce  

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The sacralization of Christmas commerce

Jean M. BartunekBoston College, USA

Boram DoBoston College, USA

AbstractDiscussions of Christmas sometimes focus on the paradox of its being both a Christian Holy Day and a secular shopping season, implicitly suggesting their equivalence. In this article we demonstrate the inadequacy of such statements. We explore the ongoing evolution of Christmas in the Northeast United States since the 17th century, and we show how, thanks in part to Calvinist theology brought by the early Puritan settlers, commerce associated with Christmas has been sacralized over time, become sacred, to the extent that it now, to a considerable extent, subsumes the religious commemoration of Christmas. We suggest some implications of this process.

KeywordsChristmas, Christmas shopping, profane, religion, sacred

The sacralization of Christmas commerce

The relationship between Christmas as a Christian Holy Day and as a secular occasion for com-merce is often described as paradoxical. For example, Pimlott (1962, p. 9) asked ‘what is the key to the paradox of Christmas—the co-existence of the Nativity feast with the Saturnalia of the secu-lar celebrations?’. Belk (1995, p. 75) claimed that ‘The tension produced by this paradox surfaces each Christmas season when the consumer materialism seemingly stimulated by the holiday chal-lenges the non-materialistic values enshrined by Christian theology’. Jensen (1996, p. 80) argued that ‘the world’s preparation [for Christmas] is fundamentally about commerce. The church’s preparation is focused on the birth of him who is the word made flesh incarnate among us’.

Corresponding author:Jean M. Bartunek, Management and Organization Department, Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA. Email: bartunek@bc.edu

416400ORGXXX10.1177/1350508411416400Bartunek and DoOrganization

Article

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Such references to the ‘paradox’ of Christmas highlight what Tynan and McKechnie (2006, p. 182) referred to as ‘the opposition of sacred and profane values in the secular world’. As the quotations above suggest, the elements used in popular discourse to represent the sacred and pro-fane are typically the religious commemoration of Christmas as opposed to Christmas consumer-ism and commerce. Implicit in such statements is the assumption that, consistent with many discussions of paradox, the religious and commercial poles remain in ongoing active tension, con-tributing to each others’ continual development through dialectical processes in ways that benefit both (cf. Smith and Lewis, 2011).

In this article we will argue that such an implicit assumption is wrong. We will explore and develop an enhanced understanding of how the sacred and the profane have interacted and evolved over time in ways that have had substantial impacts on both the religious celebration and commer-cial organization of Christmas. We will also show that the commercial Christmas has been sacral-ized and has come to dominate religious celebration of the feast. Finally, we will explore some implications of this domination.

Given differences in the celebration of Christmas in different parts of the world, our exploration will focus on a limited geographical area, the Northeast United States, and, further, primarily on Protestant religious expressions as these have evolved since the early colonists. This limited focus enables more precise study of a huge topic.

Studying Christmas in the US can bring interactions between the sacred and profane at Christmas into bold relief. The Northeast US colonies were originally established, in part, by people in search of religious freedom, especially Puritans (Nissenbaum, 1996a; Restad, 1995; Schmidt, 1991). In addition,the US is one of the more religious countries in the Western world (Crabtree and Pelham, 2009) at least in the northern hemisphere. At the same time, US commerce associated with Christmas is extraordinarily high. For example, the total value of US shipments for Christmas toys by manufacturers in 2007 was $3.2 billion, and retail sales by the nation’s department stores in December 2008 alone reached $28.2 billion (US Census Bureau, 2009).

To begin our exploration, we describe how we are using the terms sacred and profane. We will then present our brief historical summary.

Definitions of the sacred and the profane

The notion of the sacred is often considered synonymous with religion. However, scholars starting with Durkheim (1954 [1912]) have suggested other ways the sacred might be defined. Evans (2003) summarized three ways to define the sacred; the (strictly) religious, the transcendent and the set-apart. Some scholars use the sacred primarily as a synonym for religion, focusing on major religions such as Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism and so on (Aho, 2000; Ebaugh, 2002).Others view the sacred as the transcendent, including a divine being or some sense of ultimate reality of truth (Larson et al., 1998; Seidlitz et al., 2002). Both of these definitions are grounded in the supernatural.

The third definition of the sacred, the ‘set-apart’, was originally introduced by Durkheim (1954 [1912]), who argued that the sacred does not necessarily have a connection to the supernatural or to formal religions. It does, however, include what is ‘set apart’, such as particular beliefs, rituals and duties. Durkheim (1954 [1912]) suggested that the meaning of the sacred originates in a sym-bolic projection of the group identity. Sacred, set-apart aspects are a source of social cohesion. They pull a group together mentally and physically, and, thus, meanings of the sacred depend on the shared creation and evocation of emotionally valenced symbols (Boyer, 2002; Sosis and Alcorta, 2003).

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In other words, according to Durkheim, the sacred is a social product based on collective belief and practice (Lukes, 1969) that does not require a formal religious component. Somewhat simi-larly, Tetlock et al. (2000, p. 853) argued that

A sacred value can be defined as any value that a moral community implicitly or explicitly treats as possessing infinite or transcendental significance that precludes comparisons, trade-offs, or indeed any other mingling with bounded or secular values.

Under all of its definitions, the sacred is distinguished from the profane. The term ‘profane’ has also been used in multiple ways (e.g. Battani et al., 1997; Boyle and Healy, 2003), but we will use it here, following other authors, to refer to mundane, ordinary, everyday states in the world (Belk, 1989; Belk et al., 1989; Walsh, 1980). Such states are sometimes equated, at least within capitalist modernity, with commerce (Langer, 2002).

What has previously been considered profane may, however, be sacralized (Tynan and McKechnie, 2006), a process that ‘involves the theological reconfiguration of the secular and the sacred’ (Chang and Lim, 2009: 408) and that appropriates the profane for the sacred. As one of many examples, secular music is sometimes appropriated and sacralized by contemporary Christian musicians (Chang and Lim, 2009).

Taking these issues into account, we will summarize the history of Christmas in the Northeastern US. We will follow this presentation with an analysis of the evolution of what has been considered sacred at Christmas, along with some implications of this evolution.

Christmas in the Northeastern United States—from the 17th to 18th century

Most of the colonists who initially settled the Northeast US, Puritans as well as others, were Calvinists, and Calvinist Protestantism was ‘the ruling theology throughout the entire Colonial period’ (Boettner, 1998). One of Calvin’s major theological contributions was the belief that ‘the commercial world … appears to be a part of God’s created order’ (Taylor, 2004: 80) as opposed to what many Christians viewed as the ‘kingdom of darkness’. Taylor noted that Calvin’s theological stance ‘underwrote the expansion of capitalism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’. It came to have, over time, a substantial impact on Christmas in the US, although it was not initially linked with the feast.

Early Puritan settlers suppressed religious celebrations of Christmas on December 25th (Nissenbaum, 1996a; Schmidt, 1995; Spencer, 1935). This was partly because the Bible failed to provide evidence of the time of year Jesus was born. It was also because Christmas was ‘generally observed with more revelry than piety’ (Nissenbaum, 1996b: 93). In the northern hemisphere, late December was an extended season of leisure following the harvest. Christmas celebrations in New England often involved, in addition to casual sex, roaming house to house, often in disguise, to beg noisily for money or alcohol (Nissenbaum, 1996a, 1996b, 2009). For this reason, Cotton Mather, a Puritan minister and famous preacher, regarded Christmas as all too often an occasion for ‘dancing and drunkenness, chambering (fornication) and wantonness’ (Nissenbaum, 2009). For Puritans, there was nothing sacred about celebrating Christmas.

In 18th century New England (Nissenbaum, 1996a), boisterous celebrations at Christmas con-tinued and strengthened, even though Puritan leaders continued to outlaw any religious celebra-tion (Walsh, 1980). As Nissenbaum (1996b) noted, by the years following the American revolution in the late 18th century, gangs of beggars, typically young men (Davis, 1982), would roam the

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streets at Christmas, call uninvited at the houses of wealthier citizens and demand entry. Further, similar to prior English celebrations, US revelers sometimes turned the social hierarchy upside down by means of gestures that inverted designated roles of gender, age and class (Nissenbaum, 1996a).

Contrary to the Puritans’ approach, Anglicans in both England and the US colonies tried to sacralize Christmas (Schmidt, 1992). Anglicans shared Puritans’ concerns about the ways that holi-day lewdness, drunkenness, obscenity and brawling dishonored Christ, but they also viewed the religious observance of Christmas as a great blessing. Early American Methodists also wanted to transform the popular festivities of Christmas by means of ‘prayers, exhortations, testimonials, love feasts, and hymns’ (Schmidt, 1992: 178), hoping to reclaim Christmas as a religious feast. However, while their efforts created more religious awareness, such awareness did not replace Christmas rowdyism.

Christmas in the 19th century

The turn of the 19th century coincided in the US with increased industrialization and a consequent decrease in the percentage of the population engaged in farming and, thus, with time off in late December (cf. Waits, 1993). Some US religious leaders made a concerted effort to emphasize Christmas as a religious celebration by holding church services on December 25 (Nissenbaum, 1996a). However, early efforts to close shops and open churches at Christmas failed, and the efforts were abandoned. Nevertheless, the celebration of Christmas was transformed during the 19th cen-tury. What caused the transformation was what Nissenbaum (1996a, p. 48) called a ‘religion of domesticity’, presided over not by Jesus, but by a ‘newer and worldlier deity-Santa Claus’ and what he was bringing—Christmas gifts. These fundamentally changed the meaning of the celebra-tion of Christmas from boisterous revelry to organized commercialism, and helped to establish the foundations of the contemporary Christmas.

Gift-giving

In the early 19th century the notion that money and commerce associated with giving presents might taint the religious celebration of Christmas was absent (Nissenbaum, 1996a: 73), in part at least because Calvinism used financial success as an indicator of faith or the source for charity (Taylor, 2004). Thus, when advertisements for Christmas presents began to appear as early as the first signs of interest in Santa Claus emerged in the US, this did not provoke a strong reaction from religious leaders.

Commercial Christmas presents started to become common during the 1820s, and the economy became more dependent upon Christmas sales over time (Spencer, 1935). Further, by the late 19th century, store owners had developed strategies that made Christmas shopping more enjoyable for shoppers and more lucrative for themselves. For example, they raised Christmas—dressed store windows to an art form (Bird, 2007). ‘One of the signs of the approach of Christmas’, reported the New York Tribune in 1882, was the crowds of ‘sidewalk spectators’ that gathered around the win-dows to watch mechanical toys’ (Restad, 1995: 128).

Gift-giving at Christmas helped restrain rowdy behavior, because the merchants ‘needed the streets to be cleared of drunks and rowdies in order to secure them for Christmas [shoppers] … who in turn needed to feel secure in the streets’ (Nissenbaum, 1996a: 134). It was also associated with charity. In the 19th century, the growing disparity between rich and poor, and especially urban poverty, was drawing concern. Ministers and some lay persons thought that the gulf between the

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affluent and the impoverished threatened to destroy American society (Restad, 1995). Sentiments about gift-giving combined with more general Christian social themes to redirect a portion of the nation’s materialistic leanings ‘toward the less fortunate at Christmas and, at least on a symbolic scale, to earmark gifts as a form of charity’ (Restad, 1995: 132).

By the 1850s and 1860s most religious people found Christmas presents appropriate (Schmidt, 1995). During this time, the number of religious celebrations also increased. The New York Times in 1877 remarked that formerly Christmas observance had been ‘devoted chiefly to eating and drinking’ and that, as for churchgoing, ‘only a few’ had gone ‘to join in the songs of praise’. However, it continued, ‘now church chimes, tolling the solemnity, had deposed the rough music of callithumpians; … and “responsive crowds”, instead of noisily thronging the streets, flocked to special church services’(Restad, 1995: 181).

Santa Claus

Versions of St Nicholas had existed for centuries in Europe (Restad, 1995), but the Santa who arrived in New York in the early 19th century was very different from the European version. He came at Christmas instead of December 6 (his feast day) and he was given a very different physical form by Clement Moore (1823), in his popular A Visit from St Nicholas, a poem that has largely defined Santa for generations. As Belk (1987, 1995) noted, Santa Claus can be seen as involving a duality between Jesus-like, family-centred characteristics and materialistic characteristics. In the 19th century, some American families started to invest in Santa Claus qualities previously associ-ated with Jesus (cf. Restad, 1995). ‘Christmas presents even took on a hallowed cast. They were God’s blessings, the answer to children’s prayers and Santa Claus was God’s peculiar messenger in these errands of bounty and grace’ (Schmidt, 1995: 139).

By the mid-19th century, there started to be some complaints about impacts of the Christmas marketplace and ever more lavish gifts, and these complaints increased in frequency over time. Schmidt (1995, p. 183) noted that in 1880 The New York Times ‘extolled the simplicity and senti-ment of homemade Christmas gifts over the lavishness of bought presents in a caustic editorial’. These concerns inevitably drew in Santa Claus, and by the later years in the 19th century Santa started to be seen by some religious leaders as obscuring the importance of Jesus by emphasizing materialistic values. One religious commentator in 1883 labeled Santa a ‘species of American heathenism’ (Schmidt, 1995: 186). Likewise, in the first two decades of the 20th century, the Sunday School Times started a crusade to minimize Santa Claus’s presence in Protestant church schools, but to turn attention to Jesus’ Nativity (Schmidt, 1995). Many Christians agreed that Santa had become ‘discouragingly mercenary’, an icon of acquisition and consumer longing, distress-ingly at odds with the Christian meanings of the feast (Schmidt, 1995: 187).

Early to mid-20th century Christmas

In the early to mid-20th century, an increasing number of people celebrated Christmas in some manner (Nissenbaum, 1996a). There emerged during this time an increasingly close fit between Christmas shopping and Christian symbols.

One example was the Wanamaker brothers’ department stores. The Wanamaker brothers were also builders of Sunday schools and churches, and they saw their department stores as their loftiest temples; one of them referred to his store as ‘a pulpit for me’ (Schmidt, 1992: 351). As Schmidt (1992, 1995) noted, Wanamaker’s Grand Court in Philadelphia became almost literally a church at Christmas. There was carol singing twice a day, accompanied by the Grand Organ, and the store

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printed its own hymnals for use by its customers. Bird (2007, p. 28) commented that ‘At Christmastime Wanamaker’s messianic media suggested the permanence of a cathedral in which sales counters receded in the comforting folds of Gothic tracery, heraldry, and the Virgin’.1

However, criticism of the commercialization of Christmas continued. Social gospelers tried to expose the inequities and injustices of the Christmas marketplace (Schmidt, 1995: 185) and reli-gious critiques focused on how it threatened to eclipse religious meanings of Christmas. Distress about ‘the commercialization of Christmas’ became a standard subject of religious protest by the 1930s and 1940s (Schmidt, 1995: 188). In 1938 pastors claimed that’the land is inundated by a tidal wave of commercial activity and materialistic self-seeking that quite obliterates the quiet, peaceful, spiritual meaning of the birth of Jesus Christ’ (Schmidt, 1995: 151). Sentiments like these coalesced in 1949 in a movement that went under the banner, ‘Put Christ Back into Christmas’, and that emphasized that Christ should be more a part of Christmas shopping (Schmidt, 1995: 189).

Later 20th century to the early 21st century

Christmas has become a centerpiece of US commerce, and the Christmas season is one of the most profitable periods for retailers. Thus, in the early 1980s, when the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the constitutionality of Pawtucket Rhode Island’s publicly financed Nativity scene, merchants there were among the crèche’s most consistent backers (Schmidt, 1995). They argued that the crèche was part of a larger series of displays and decorations, all of which helped attract shoppers into the downtown and contribute to the ‘economic well-being of the city’.While lower courts disagreed with this claim, the US Supreme Court ultimately supported it (Retrieved from http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0465_0668_ZO.html).

This event and others like it have led several people to view Christmas as more than a Christian religious expression. Horsley (2003, p. 33) argued that Christmas has become an ‘imperial reli-gion’, and claimed that this has come about ‘precisely because it is understood as secular’. Roll (1995, p. 243) argued that ‘the extensive commercialization of Christmas as such arises precisely from the fact that this one Christian feast has managed to retain its relevance in pluralistic or post-Christian western societies’. According to a recent Gallup poll, 93% of Americans celebrate Christmas in some way even though only 78% identify themselves as Christians (Newport, 2009). Manifestations of charity, if not the social gospel envisaged in the 19th century continue, for exam-ple, to be evident at Christmas. For example a Boston volunteer organization, Christmas in the City (http://www.christmasinthecity.org/) sponsors a holiday party at Christmastime each year for homeless children in the Boston area. ‘The idea behind Christmas in the City is simple: Every kid deserves a toy on Christmas, even homeless kids. One toy they really want’ (Cullen, 2009).

There are, however, active disputes about how much advertising and store displays should dis-play themes explicitly related to Christmas. Gibson (2006) has described a ‘war on Christmas’ on the part of merchandisers who do not overtly use Christmas language and imagery. Leo (2004, p. 87) complained that ‘The purge of Christmas is … in full bloom’ at several department stores, in part because ‘The sensitive executives at [the department stores] are victims of the growing cam-paign to make people feel uncomfortable about Christmas’. Mass (2005) argued that ‘the attack on Christmas does not come from non-Christian people of faith—it comes from anti-Christian people of no faith’. The American Family Association has a ‘naughty and nice’ list of stores based on how much they use Christmas imagery in their advertising’ (retrieved April 28, 2010, from http://www.afa.net/Detail.aspx?id=2147486887), and threatens boycotts to get stores to use such imagery more frequently (Marcus, 2005; Olsen and Morgan, 2009). They celebrated a recent victory when The Gap clothing chain started airing ‘unambiguous Christmas advertising’. The newspaper article

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describing the victory titled it ‘Jesus draws first blood in war on Christmas’ (Retrieved from http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2009/12/jesus_draws_fir.php).

Further, some Christian religions are suggesting ways that their members may observe the reli-gious spirit of Christmas even in the midst of consumer activities. For example, the ‘Just Living’ series published by the Presbyterian Church (Retrieved February 24, 2011, from http://www.pcusa.org/resource/ideas-reclaiming-advent-and-christmas/), recognizes that

During Advent we anticipate and celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In modern-day culture Christmas has become a season of consumption … On one hand we want to observe Advent and wait for the Christ child; on the other we want to shop and wrap and bake and run ourselves ragged with all the trimmings.Ideas for Reclaiming Advent and Christmas is designed to help Presbyterians celebrate the birth of Christ in more meaningful ways than mainstream culture provides.

In statements such as this, there is an explicit recognition that consumer activities form the center of preparations for Christmas even for those who profess Christian faith.

Analysis and discussion

Based on the foregoing summary, Table 1 summarizes what has been treated as sacred (according to Durkheim’s criteria) and profane at Christmas at different times, as well as occasions when the profane has been sacralized.

Sacralizing the profane

Table 1 suggests that the sacred associated with Christmas has come to include, over time, religious services, a religion of domesticity presided over by Santa, Christmas gifts, Christmas shopping and Christmas advertising. Despite controversies associated with these, they have all been set apart and ritualized.

In the 17th century, religious celebrations of Christmas were suppressed and considered profane by Puritan settlers. Due to efforts of Anglicans and Methodists, religious celebrations started to be perceived as sacred in the 18th century. In the 19th century, Santa and gift-giving blurred the boundary between the sacred and the profane. Santa was both God’s messenger and a species of American heathenism, and gift-giving could be both charitable and contradictory to the religious meaning of Christmas.

As indicated above, the organized commercialization of Christmas has often been criticized as violating the spirit of the Christian Holy Day. Though it might violate this spirit, it meets criteria for the sacred. For example, the Wanamakers helped sacralize Christmas shopping by locating modified church services within their store. The only difference was that their ‘church’ attracted customers, not communicants, and sold a good deal of merchandise at Christmas in conjunction with hymn singing. Christmas in the City is a children’s charity that aims to ameliorate the impact of being homeless on families and children. The primary way they do this at Christmas is by pro-viding desired gifts. This sacralizes Christmas gifts and may foster a culture that makes poor peo-ples’ lives even more difficult (Hill, 2002).

Disputes about Christmas advertising, especially those that suggest a ‘war’ on Christmas, treat consumerism as its battlefield. This suggests the implicit, if not explicit, message that people are more likely to be reminded of the religious in Christmas advertising than in venues such as the church services or advent preparation time, in part, at least, because they have much more access to such advertising.

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Implications of these processes

Events like these make evident that the ‘paradox of Christmas’ (Pimlott, 1962), defined as tensions between a relatively equal religious holy day and a secular shopping holiday, does not really exist, at least in any strength. Rather, commercialism has been sacralized so successfully that it is now

Table 1. Evolution of the Sacred at Christmas

Century/events The sacred at Christmas The profane at Christmas Sacralizing the profane

17th to 18th century

No sacred commemoration; the date of Jesus’ birth wasn’t in the bible

Dancing and drunkenness, chambering (fornication) and wantonness (hereafter referred to as ‘rowdy behaviour’)

18th century Anglicans and Methodists wanted to celebrate Christmas with Church services

Continued rowdy behaviour

Early 19th century

Some religions made a concerted effort to emphasize Christmas as a religious celebration by holding church services on December 25, but these failed

Continued rowdy behaviour

Mid 19th century

Christmas shopping becomes more prominentReligion of domesticity presided over by Santa Claus.

Rowdy behaviour lessened

Santa considered a sacred figure by some. Calvinists see commerce as consistent with Christianity

Late 19th century

Christmas gifts and Christmas shopping take on characteristics of the sacred for some.The social gospel emerges, with some ‘materialistic leanings’ directed towards those less fortunate.

Many Christians agreed that Santa had become an icon of acquisition and consumer longing, at odds with Christian meanings of Christmas

Early to mid 20th century

An increasing perceived fit between Christmas shopping and Christmas symbols

The religious critique focused on how the Christmas marketplace threatened to eclipse religious meanings of Christmas. Distress about ‘the commercialization of Christmas’Social gospelers try to expose inequities and injustices created by Christmas

Some stores include sacred elements such as hymn singing in conjunction with shopping

Late 20th to early 21st century

Christmas shopping and consumption are treated as sacred by many, ritualized and set apart

Some companies seem to ‘ignore’ Christmas in advertising

Advertising that explicitly includes Christmas has come to be seen as sacred

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much more prominent than the religious celebration of Christmas. Church-like services within a department store, consumption as a means of expressing the sacred (Belk, 1987), charity within commerce and Christmas within advertising all illustrate what Lambek (2002, p. 10) refers to as ‘the subsumption of religion within capitalist modernity’.

There are other indicators of the sacralization of commerce to the detriment of religion. Cox (1999) argued that the market has become God. Benjamin et al. (1996, p. 288) argued that capitalism is a religion, albeit of a different type than others. ‘Capitalism is a purely cultic religion, perhaps the most extreme that ever existed. … (It) is the celebration of a cult sans rêve et sans merci (without dream or mercy) … (and) is probably the first instance of a cult that creates guilt, not atonement’. deChant (2003, p. 12) described Christmas as the greatest holy day of the consumer culture; it is then that people make pilgrimages to shrines and tem-ples (stores and shopping malls) and perform the ‘sacred rituals of acquisition … reaffirming their primordial relationship with the economy’s sacred power’. In other words, Christmas contributes to the worship of a different god than the one whose nativity as human is com-memorated on Christmas.

One effect of this phenomenon is that purposes often considered integral to the religious com-memoration of Jesus’ birth are relegated to the sidelines. Roll (1995, p. 230) argued, for exam-ple, that ‘The credibility of a feast which trumpets earthly peace is damaged to the extent that war and terrorism as well as social injustice and suffering continues unabated and, in its totality, unaddressed’. In other words, profound meanings such as ‘peace on earth’ associated with the religious at Christmas are considered mundane. Historians and philosophers of religion have suggested the possibility that the subsumption of religion into capitalism, at Christmas and other times, have, at least partly, desacralized religion. Zizek (2003, p. 3) commented that religion has been ‘reduced to a secondary epiphenomenon with regard to the secular functioning of the social totality’. Hopgood (2009) argued that this subsumption has removed the transcendent sacred from religion. Such images of religion within a capitalist framework suggest a very different view than Calvin’s about the potential for a contribution to God’s glory to be found in commer-cial activity. What has become sacred and set apart not only does not require religion for sacred experience, but has usurped it.

Thus, contrary to the claims of Pimlott (1962), Belk (1995) and others, the paradox of Christmas is not the coexistence of the religious feast with commerce. Rather, the paradox of Christmas is that organized commercialism has become sacred, and the religious experience of Christmas has lost a good deal of its sacred character. Christmas has, in some ways, reverted to the Puritans’ treatment of it as time of commerce. But contrary to Puritan times, this time of commerce is no longer normal and mundane. Rather, from a commercial standpoint, Christmas is indeed the most sacred day of the year.

Note

We are grateful to Anne Attard, Maesoon Im, Jim Walsh and the first reviewer for their assistance on this article.

1 There is no longer carol singing at Wanamaker’s. However, Macy’s, a large department store chain that purchased Wanamaker’s, has maintained some quasi-religious elements at Christmas time there, such as a Christmas light show, http://www.wanamakerorgan.com/xmas.php and sells online some of the religious recordings made by Wanamaker’s organists during the mid-19th century, http://wanamakerorgan.com/thumbs.php#Christmas (scroll to bottom of page). In October, 2010 the Opera Company of Philadelphia performed the Halleluiah Chorus in the Grand Court at the former Wanamaker’s store, using the Wanamaker organ, as a ‘random act of culture’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp_RHnQ-jgU.

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Biographies

Jean M. Bartunek is the Robert A. and Evelyn J. Ferris Chair and Professor of Management and Organization at the Carroll School of Management at Boston College. Her PhD is from the University of Illinois at Chicago and she is a fellow and past president of the Academy of Management. She is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science and an incoming Associate Editor of Academy of Management Learning and Education. Her research interests focus in particular on organizational change and academic-practitioner relationships. Address: Management and Organization Department, Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA. Email: bartunek@bc.edu

Boram Do is a doctoral student in the Management and Organization Department at Boston College. Her current research interests include emotions and psychological contracts in organiza-tions, and organizational change and leadership in the global context. Address: Management and Organization Department, Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA. Email: boram.do@gmail.com